August 30th, 2012

Here’s an open thread to talk about tonight’s doings. I may update from time to time.

11:49: Watched Romney’s speech, which did everything it needed to do. The proof is that afterward, when I tuned to MSNBC for the critique, they really didn’t have too much bad to say about it—at least for the 10 minutes or so I listened.

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My boyfriend was a huge Obama supporter last election. A lot of it had to do with voting for the first African-American president. I can remember trying my best to tell them how unprepared Obama was for the job. However, my boyfriend used to run a business and is enough of a capitalist to realize what an failure this administration has been. So he is watching bits and pieces of the convention with me and has become a reluctant Romney supporter. Interesting how opinions change in four years.

I think Mitt has no problems connecting and communicating and will give a stellar speech. His problem will be one of so many Americans conditioned to distrust people of such uncommon success and wealth .

America is poised to make huge changes. This means Romney is poised to be a historically significant President. If Romney is up to it. I suspect he is up to it. We shall see.

Beyond the fact that Americans recognize that Barack is incompetent, consider this gathering confluence of circumstances:

–Americans consider that the Barack and leftist style of big government Keynesian spending … is a loser; makes no sense.

–Europe is failing; especially Greece. Which reinforces that leftist style big government Keynesian spending is a loser.

–Tea Party movement of 2009 to present. Including Sarah Palin, who is the adrenaline of the Tea Party movement, and who remains active as a leader in speaking out for small government.

–the way in which Obamacare was haphazardly rammed down American’s throats, thus creating rancid aftertaste.

–Scott Brown’s election.

–2010 elections.

–Chris Christie’s success in New Jersey.

–Scott Walker’s success in Wisconsin.

–Paul Ryan.

–the undeniable success of the Texas model of government, as contrasted against the undeniable failure of the California model of government. In the 20th Century, California was the national cultural trendsetter, and the rest of the nation followed. In the 21st Century, in the matter of how to run a government: Texas is the national trendsetter, and the rest of the nation is following: Tennessee, Oklahoma, Mississippi, Wisconsin, and more. Look, also, at the overall governing success of red states vs the overall governing failure of blue states. The differences are stark. I believe Americans are noticing.

–the up and coming Republicans who are willing to speak out, boldly, in favor of small government: Palin, Ryan, Jindal, Rubio, Allen West, Ted Cruz, and many, many more. The energy, and the verve, and the swagger, is with young politicians who are outspoken about favoring small government.

–the internet: allows organizing; allows influential politically astute Americans to get informed and to then influence our circles of influence. I am speaking of us: everyone who comments here; everyone who is on the internet and who believes in small government. We all have circles of influence in our communities. We all have friends and acquaintances who respect us enough to watch the direction in which we are leading, and to usually follow. And we have this wonderful tool: the internet, which allows us to be informed, and thus which allows us to be even more influential in our circles of influence. We did not have this tool, to this level of effectiveness, 10 years ago. The first time we had this tool, to this level of effectiveness, was Sept 2004, when Powerline readers broke open the Rathergate story.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Taken all together: the entire gathering confluence of circumstances: Americans are ready, as we have not been since Reagan, and , before that, as we had not been ready since the Civil Rights movement .. to make big changes. Americans are ready to slash government spending. The circumstances are right for Romney to have a tremendously influential Presidency.

Romney, hopefully, probably (given his executive background), is likely to be bold.

McConnell is not ready, and that is a big problem. Boehner is not ready, and that is a big problem.

Mitt seems like a good man and a great businessman. But he is not a salesman or a natural politician. That is a worry. If he starts pushing changes that cause pain and make people angry (cutting spending, reforming entitlements), he may need the flourish of Churchill not the pedestrian language of John Major.

I thought Romney’s speech was good. IMO, it hit the right notes. He was aiming not at the conservative base. (Although there was some good stuff in there for us.) The speech was crafted for the undecided independents. He came across as a trustworthy, caring man, not the rapacious, greedy capitalist he has been depicted as. I think independents will look at his record of success and compare that with what Obama has accomplished. They’ll decide he is a man who gets things done and has shown that he has lived a caring, moral life. And that can make all the difference. He just needs three or four percent more to vote for him than voted for Obama last time and he’s in. I don’t want to get cocky so I won’t predict a big win. “Wouldn’t be prudent.” I just want to wake up on November 7th and know we have a chance to turn things around. That’s why I’m supporting him with money and making his case to family and friends. It’s not much but it’s what we can all do.

gcotharn — I’d certainly have included this one, from Congressman Ryan:

“College graduates should not have to live out their 20s in their childhood bedrooms, staring up at fading Obama posters and wondering when they can move out and get going with life.” — Paul Ryan, 28 Aug 2012

The bottom line is this: no business leader worth his salt would ever expect the people around him to put up with excuses as to why things hadn’t gotten better three and 1/2 years after taking over. Nor, would the people around him continue to support him as they and their coworkers lost their jobs because the company continued to do poorly. No one would say, “Well, he is trying. He means well. The _(fill in the blank)___ just isn’t cooperating.”

We all know the guy would lose his job especially if he had made endless promises about how he was going to make things better and hadn’t even tried. Who are we kidding? Clint was right. The guy needs to be fired.

It’s always mystified me why people couldn’t detect the goodness and capability of Mitt Romney. I liked him in 2008, for goodness sakes. This time around, I supported Perry for a while because he’s a Texan (yup…we Texan’s are proud of our own) and because of his 10th amendment philosophy of governing.

After it became apparent that Perry wasn’t the man to win this election, my support went to Romney. So I began to publically support him about the same time Neo did (reaching through the computer screen to high five with Neo).

I have complete trust in his competence and character. If anyone can beat Obama, I believe he will.

On MSNBC I started laughing when I heard a couple of their commentators use “bellicose” and “war footing” to refer to parts of Romney’s speech. They are twisting in the wind. They also take bits of things said and parse them in desperate and floundering ways. This is all the while their staple raps are quite often wildly misleading.

I was with a Democrat friend. He muttered three times during Eastwood “he’s just so cool.” That was a tiny crack in the armour. He couldn’t watch Rubio or Romney, but I did.
I thought that Romney did far better than I expected. He rose to the occasion with grace and aplomb. I was already 100% behind him and 200% after the Ryan pick. Now I’m hovering around 1000%.
I was a left winger during Regan days, so I was as closed minded as my Democrat friends and could not enjoy Regan. Now I look forward to enjoying Romney and Ryan set sail: strong men for these tumultous seas we ride!
I like very much that Romney will not be playing much if any golf. He will be working. He enjoys work.

M, Clint is cool but Romney is square isn’t he? Ryan is an interesting combination of cool and square. Cool seems to be important to getting people to buy into ideas. There seems to be a conscious effort on the part of some in Hollywood (eg, Roger L Simon, Gerald Molen, Clint) to make conservative thinking the new cool.

Early in the campaign, I wanted a fighter to tackle Sir Golfsalot, so supported Newt and Santorum and Perry with $.
I wuz wrong.
Swung to Mitt months ago. We are well-served by this good, capable man. I pray RR will be victorious and begin the arduous task of leading us out of our long national nightmare.

I enjoyed Eastwood’s “speech” but it seems like Clint is taking most of the potshots on the left. The meme seems to be that he is that embarrassing “crazy uncle” that every family has.

As opposed to Biden, I guess

This is the first time I’ve actually watched most of a GOP convention and found the majority of speakers to be compelling and convincing. Romney did a great job, overall. His character really came through. But the bench is excellent too. Ryan and Rubio were outstanding. Mia Love, Chris Christie, Nikki Haley, the salute to Hispanic voters…it all left an impression of commitment, COMPETENCE, real diversity. Certainly knocked the GOP stereotype of mean capitalist white guys on its ear.

I could have done without the Callista and Newt show (Callista always comes across as completely artificial) but that’s really my only complaint.

@10:55 harold Wrote: “It is hard to see how the American public can compare the two men and their accomplishments and vote for anyone other then Romney.”

Harold, I offer that those who vote for Obama will not do so because they’ve compared the two men but because they refuse to do just that. They will vote for Obama out of a religious-like fervor or because they buy into the myth that non-liberals are evil and must be defeated at any cost. It’s almost never a matter of logic with the left.

Mitt did fine in my estimation and Rubio lived up to my high expectations of him. He is, after all my senator so I know what to expect. He even slipped in a burst of Spanish. I thought the Eastwood appearance was a bold and risky move and further convinced me that Romney is willing to innovate. I think this convention has gone well.

I suspect that the reason the Repubs are “trampling” on the grassroots has a lot more to do with what it takes to win this thing. They do not need another Akin incident right now. I believe that a Romney adminstration is going to be a lot more inclusive than the current administration. We won’t know if that’s true if party members can’t stay on message for the duration of the campaign.

I, too, find the rule changes for delegates extremely disconcerting. I am in full support of Romney/Ryan. But I have a lot of misgivings about the changes to the process. Not because I am a Republican (I’m not) but because of what it reveals about the people at the top.

“My favorite face-palm moment was when the Messiah intoned that Romney was ‘not qualified to run a national economy.'”

As absurd as it sounded I suggest that this is a good thing. Just because it is so transparently absurd it becomes more and more difficult with each passing day to take any Obama pronouncements seriously. Now the die-hards will vote for Obama under any conditions, but the sentient voters who have yet to decide can only shake their heads in disbelief.

And as to sentient voters, rememeber that 47% of the electorate rejected this malarky even before there was a track record to compare it to.

About Me

Previously a lifelong Democrat, born in New York and living in New England, surrounded by liberals on all sides, I've found myself slowly but surely leaving the fold and becoming that dread thing: a neocon. Read More >>